130 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



tSeotember) 



also a source of considerable destruction to 

 the ripe corn crops standing in the fields, and 

 their migrations were doubtless governed by 

 a question of food. Organized parties annu- 

 ally slaughtered thousands of them, so that 

 now perhaps such migrations do not occur, 

 it is also on record that rats, mice, &c., for 

 the same rersous, occasionally migrate. 



As to migratory insects, neither In the great 

 African locust, nor yet in the " Kocky Moun- 

 tain Locust" of our own country, is it the 

 same individuals that return towards the 

 locality from whence their progenitors 

 migrated, but an entirely new generation, in 

 which they very materially differ from birds. 

 After the locusts have devoured all the herb- 

 age in the locality where they have been bred, 

 or may have subsequently located them.selves, 

 it is but natural to suppose that when they 

 make their departure they go in quest of new 

 feeding grounds ; but, what should induce a 

 subsequent brood to return to the point of 

 their ancestral departure, must remain an 

 enigma, unless we may suppose that their 

 movements are merely incidental, governed 

 by " wind and tide," and without any of that 

 instinctive judgment so manifest in some of 

 the higher animals. We only know for certain 

 that they come and go again. The "Array- 

 worms," we may legitimately suppose, in 

 their various migrations, are in quest of new 

 pasture, having devoured all that is desirable 

 in the fields they abandon. 



The "Colorado Potato Beetle," in its migra- 

 tions, from the time it left its Rocky Moun- 

 tain wilds, and perseveringly bent its course 

 eastward, was doubtless mainly governed by 

 gastronomical considerations, and yet it may 

 have been under a migratorial impulse tliat it 

 could not disobey. During one of our visits 

 to the Atlantic coast, in the State of 

 Delaware, we found, for five or six miles 

 along the beach, many thousands of these 

 beetles (and also other species), and almost 

 every returning wave dashed others on the 

 beach, some of which were yet living. Dela- 

 ware that year was seriously infested by 

 them ; but why they should leave the green 

 potato fields, Hy two or three miles across a 

 sandy fiat, destitute of succulent vegetation, 

 and out into the Atlantic Ocean, only to drop 

 in and become food for fishes, or be cast upon 

 the shore again, it would be ditticult to find 

 out, unless they were driven out by the wind, 

 or, in obedience to that characteristic impulse 

 to be ever on " the go," which has been such 

 a distinguished feature of their advent. 



In August and September, 1839, the com- 

 mon " Red-legged Locust," {Caloplenus femer- 

 rubrum) was more abundant in Lancaster 

 county than it has ever been since, or perhaps 

 than it ever had been before. Its destructive 

 character was plainly visible in many of the 

 corn fields, and amongst other species of 

 vegetation. Towards the end of September 

 they began to migrate ; and, to a considerable 

 height, the air was full of them. They did 

 not seem to manifest any special purpose as to 

 direction, but merely rose to fifty or a hun- 

 dred feet in height, and apparently submitted 

 themselves to the control of the prevailing 

 wind. What astoni.shed every beholder was, 

 that they had the power to rise so high. Tliey 

 were mainly carried southeast by the winds 

 coming from the northwest. 



But, perhaps, the more marked insect migra- 

 tions have been among the diurnal Lepidoptra 

 —Butterflies. In our very first entomological 

 readings, over forty years ago, we were im- 

 pressed with the extraordinary migrations of 

 the " Painted Lady Butterfly," ( Vanessa car- 

 dui) from the continent into England across 

 the straits of Dover. If we have not this 

 identical insect in this country, we have one 

 so near like it as to be indistinguishable and 

 it is just as likely to have migrated hither by 

 various stages, as to have been brought here 

 by other means, and it is now Hlmost a cosmo- 

 politan. But, our own "Milk-weed," or 

 " Wild-cotton " butterfly, {Dannis archippiis), 

 is a more familiar example of these migra- 

 tions than any that has yet been recorded, for 

 according to papers published in the Canadian, 

 and also in the American Entomologist, these 

 butterflies have gathered together in large 

 flocks and have migrated to Florida, where 

 the trees have been "literally festooned" with 

 them. And this is the more curious from the 

 fact that there is far less,milk-weed there than 

 there is in the valley of the Mississippi, from 

 whence they departed. Of course the milk- 

 weed is of no account to them as a butterfly, 

 (only the larva feeding on it,) and therefore 

 they must instinctively have gone South, as a 

 safe place of hibernation. Except a very few 

 straggling, gravid females, they never get 

 back again to their native valley, and it is 

 questionable if ever these do personally, there- 

 fore their migrations differ from that of birds. 



THE WHEAT CROP OF 1882. 



Luck — Good Management — Manure. 



Our last wheat crop was one of the best we 

 have had for many years ; the yield was from 

 15 all the way up to 40 bushels per acre, 

 averaging about 27 bushels for the entire 

 connty. Those persons who fed their corn 

 into stock cattle, or bought stable manure, 

 brought from Philadelphia or Pittsburg, got 

 their 40 bushels from the acre ; and those 

 who kept on farming in the old way, pastur- 

 ing close in the summer and feeding no cattle 

 in the winter, were the ones who got only 

 from 1.5 to 20 bushels to the acre. Feeding 

 and making stock cattle fat depends a great 

 deal on good judgment in buying and selling, 

 and requires the best attention during the 

 winter season. 



Last spring will be long remembered as an 

 extraordinary one for both good and bad luck 

 in fattening cattle. Cattle were bought in 

 the fall of 1881 for from 3 to 5 cents per 

 pound. For 5 cents you could buy steers 

 nearly fat, weighing from 1,000 to 1,300 

 pounds. In the early part of 1882 small steers 

 were sold, when fat, at from 4|- to 5 cents per 

 pound, and gradually advanced in price until 

 June, when the best brought from 8 to 9 cents 

 per pound. Farmers got well paid for their 

 corn, realizing, according to good lucl-, from 

 50 ceuts up to $2 00 per bushel. 



Farming is like everything else. "What- 

 ever is worth doing at all is worth doing well," 

 hence the success of farming depends largely, 

 and in many cases entirely on good manage- 

 ment. I have a neighbor who has a forty 

 acre farm, and he feeds five or six steers, and 

 he yearly got as much as 400 bushels of wheat 

 from 12 acres. He also sells from $300 to 1400 



worth of tobacco from his place, and is im- 

 proving it all the time, but he is one of the 

 "come boys" stamp. We are getting too 

 many of the " go boys " farmers, and they are 

 generally among the unsuccessful. 



Our lands will be made to increase in fer- 

 tility and value, through our cattle feeding, 

 and from manures brought from the cities of 

 Philadelphia and Pittsburg, or elsewhere, 

 when we have not a sutficient supply of our 

 own making. 



A good coating of barnyard manure will 

 make a good crop of wheat, and will be fol- 

 lowed by a good crop of grass and corn. I 

 am strongly in favor of enriching our soil 

 from its own drafts — have more faith in good 

 stable manure than in all your forcing fer- 

 tilizers, and lime thrown into the bargain. 



Cattle and corn are both high in price, and 

 things may look a little demoralized just now, 

 and if beef should fall as suddenly as it rose 

 then there may be some danger of small 

 profits in feeding stock. Our compensation 

 will then be in the manure, — L. S. li., Oregon. 

 Sept., 1882. 



[We have taken the liberty to italicise the 

 words "luck" and "good management" in 

 our contributor's otherwsie excellent paper, 

 because it seems to involve a contradiction. 

 Does not good luck depend on good manage- 

 ment ? If so, then the converse must be 

 govered by a similar rule or its absence.] 



TOBACCO WORMS— CURIOUS FACTS 

 CONCERNING THEM. 



We have before us a large specimen of a 

 green " Horn worm " — two inches and a-half 

 long, and an inch and a-half in circumfer- 

 ence — which was brought to us as a "great 

 curiosity." It is wonderful that the phe- 

 nomenon which we shall attempt to describe 

 should be still regarded as a great curiosity, 

 especially since we first noticed it fully forty 

 years ago, and hardly a year has passed since 

 then in which we have not noticed it, and 

 often half a dozen times in the same season. 

 This worm is the larva of one of the great 

 "Hawk-moths," or "Humming BirdMoths," 

 known to entomologists under the names of 

 Macrosila Carolina or qidnque maculata — two* 

 species that have a close specific alliance, and 

 the larvffi of both of which feed upon the to- 

 bacco plant ; also, upon the tomato, the 

 potato and the egg plants, and perhaps on 

 other solanaceous vegetation. Before the in- 

 troduction of the tobacco plant so generally 

 in the county of Lancaster, we found this 

 worm usually on the potato or tomato plants. 

 The moths can easily be distinguished, the 

 first-named being rather small in size and 

 lighter in color than the last named, but the 

 larvfe to us, at least, are not readily distin- 

 guishable. 



Perhaps the curiosity did not consist so 

 much in the worm itself, as in the fact that it 

 was covered over its entire body — except the 

 undcrpart — from the head to the very last 

 segment, almost hiding the posterior horn, 

 with a compact coating of small white spindle- 

 shaped cocoons, resembling small grains of 

 rice attached to the skin of the worm by one 

 end, and so close together that the body of 

 the worm could not be seen between them. 

 We had never seen so many on one worm be- 

 fore, and we were astonished that the host 



